During a discussion in Berlin earlier this week of the European Commission’s (EC) proposals for the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy (CAP), Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler said that changes were needed to restore the CAP’s credibility.
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“We need a fresh start for the sake of the farmer, the consumer and the taxpayer. If we are serious about a policy which promotes quality rather than quantity, which offers farmers incentives not to produce for intervention stocks and not to gear their production to subsidy levels but to what the consumer wants, which frees farmers from the bureaucratic yoke of form-filling and which improves the standing of our farm aid schemes with the general public in the EU and with the WTO, then we have to decouple direct payments from production and make them conditional on compliance with environment, food safety and animal welfare standards.”
Fischler made it clear that German farmers had a right to expect to receive a fair income and to be paid a fair price directly for their efforts to protect the environment and the countryside, as for agricultural production.
“Farmers are not rewarded via the market for these public goods which society expects from them. So farmers need to be rewarded for these services directly from the CAP.”
On the proposed upper limit on direct payments Fischler said it was not fair for 80% of the money to go to 20% of the largest holdings. The aid system should take account of economies of scale: there could be no economic justification for a few big farms to receive over a million a year in EU subsidies.
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By GlobalDataFischler warned against East German doom-mongers bewailing the effects of capping payments for large holdings. “They fail to mention that we also want an allowance of 3 000 euros for each farm employee on holdings with a workforce of more than two people, so labour-intensive farms will not be at a disadvantage.
“Contrary to what is often claimed, the aid limit for a former collective farm in Brandenburg with 165 workers is then not €300,000 but €800,000, and there are also funds for environment and investment programmes. What is more, the money saved by modulation or capping is not lost to agriculture but can be channelled back via rural development to those farmers who in accordance with the ‘rewards for additional services’ principle do more for the environment, certification or animal welfare,” the Commissioner said.
Fischler expects the increased support for producing and marketing quality produce to have a positive impact on prices and hence the incomes of German farmers. He also believes that with the reinforcement of rural development policy Germany and its Länder will benefit from greater flexibility in how they use funds.
The Commissioner stressed that the brief the heads of government gave the EC at the Berlin European Council was not to cut agricultural spending. “The budget framework is valid until 2006. EU financing after 2006 is to be discussed at a later date, in a global context, which will also include structural policy. Starting the funding debate at this stage would have only one effect: to delay enlargement indefinitely.”
You can find more information about the mid-term review of the CAP by clicking here.
